Saturday, 15 August 2020

Airspeed AS.65 Consul, part six, various European Users

The Airspeed AS.65 Consul was a British twin-engined light airliner which was a direct conversion from the previous AS.10 Oxford. All of them were converted in the immediate post-war period. Many of them were sold to many airlines all around the globe, among them, the following ones:

  • Switzerland: One machine, originally registered as G-AIDX, was eventually sold in 27th June 1955 to a Swiss private owner who registered with Swiss codes, HB-LAT. This aircraft was interned in Sabadell, Spain, accused of nylon smuggling. According to one of our sources, this happened in 1952, but it wasn't until 1955 when the aircraft passed on to Swiss owners. After that it was sold in an auction in Barcelona.
    There was another Consul which ended in Swiss hands. Originally registered as El-ADC, this one was bought by the Aerocentro Sportivo Ticinese SA in Lugano, on 12th February 1959. It was later sold to Spanish Iberia airlines on 6th June 1962.
  • Spain: A total of 9 Consuls served with various Spanish airlines. The main operator was Iberia which, in 1947, was in the need for cheap twin-engine aircraft for crew training which eventually operated 7 of them from the late 1940s until the early 1960s. Initially some of them were used for local flights but eventually all of them ended up as ground crew trainers.
    Spantax, another Spanish charter airline, also operated the type as they bought three machines and operated them in local flights, specially between the Canary islands and Spanish Sahara.
  • Sweden: There were various Swedish operators of the Consul. These were Aero Nord Sweden, Aeropropaganda, Nordisk Air Transport and Transair Sweden. A total of 15 machines served with those companies mainly during the 1950s. Most of them were used in charter flights in Sweden. One machine, registered SE-BTD, crashed near the city of Gävle, on 14th July 1951 when serving with Aeropropaganda AB.
    Unfortunately we couldn't find graphical evidence of the Consul serving with these Swedish companies so the profiles depicted below should be considered as speculative.









Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspeed_Consul
2.https://www.ab-ix.co.uk/pdfs/airspeed_oxford_&_consul.pdf
3. http://leandroaviacion.blogspot.com/2013/04/1952-bimotor-airspeed-as65-consul-hb.html (translated)
4. http://www.aviationcorner.net/gallery_en.asp?aircraft_type=Airspeed%20AS.65%20Consul&aircraft_type_id=1690 (translated)
5. https://www.iberia.com/es/fleet/historic-aircrafts/Airspeed_AS-65_Consul/

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